Three years after ADV released their version
of Gunhed
on region 1 DVD, Toho finally debuts their own
region 2 offering. As expected, this release completely
outdoes the 2004 DVD, for those who don't need
English aids for viewing the film; in fact, this
is generally an outstanding release all around,
with fantastic video quality that is supported
by a nice audio track and a good array of extras.
Strangely enough, this disc also shares credit
with "Dream Planet Japan", Koichi
Kawakita's upstart production aid house, although
their exact role isn't clear, but one can assume
they had something to do with the "Making
of" feature.

Video:

This region 2 DVD sports an excellent video
transfer from pretty much every aspect. The film
itself is a pretty dark picture, with often a
dreary color-scape of grays and greens, but the
colors here are still very vibrant and distinct
when they are allowed to be. The source used for
the transfer is also in fantastic shape, showing
very little grain and no overt signs of print
damage. To further credit this disc, digital inconsistencies
are all but nonexistent while the film also looks
very sharp and rich with detail.

Gunhed is presented in its original aspect
ratio of 1.85:1 and is Anamorphic for widescreen
TVs. As a closing bit of praise, it's also great
to see a transfer which doesn't fall back on window
boxing the image. To be fair, window boxing does
allow the disc to support a wide range of setups
that might erroneously crop the image, which is
why the technique is so widespread. However, it also
needlessly compresses the image for those with
newer setups as the disc has to waste space on
compressing the added black border. Something
which this transfer clearly doesn't suffer from
and looks fantastic as a result.

Audio:

Toho's Gunhed DVD includes one audio
track, which is a two channel stereo presentation
in the film's original Japanese format. In terms
of quality, there are no complaints to be had
as distortions are unnoticeable while the track
has good speaker distinction for a stereo presentation.
The only disappointing aspect of the audio here
is the lack of options, such as the company's
usual surround track mix or some form of subtitles.

Extras:

A solid extra presentation here. The star
attraction on the DVD is a half hour "Making
of" feature, that brings in director Masato
Harada for a lengthy interview about the film,
while other staff members like Kawakita also weigh
in on more details. The feature hosts a lot of
behind the scenes footage, along with rare production
photos taken by the staff and concept art created
for the film. The closer looks at how certain
special effects shots were achieved is particularly
nice, and the feature is overall highly recommended
to anyone with an interest in the movie.

Next up is a collection of five trailers, which
had the luxury of being given an excellent transfer
process on par with the video quality of the main
feature. The early teaser trailers in particular
should be of interest to a lot viewers. Finally,
the DVD rounds out the extras with a 17 image
long gallery that covers various posters and other
memorabilia related to the production. For whatever
reason, this disc lacks a audio commentary track
though, which is usually a standard feature on
Toho's releases.

Thankfully, the supplemental content is support
here by an additional disc, which is a CD
Soundtrack for the film.

Overview:

Bottom
line, region 2 DVDs from Japan are never cheap,
but the Gunhed set is a solid offering
with superb transfer quality while the inclusion
of a previously very rare CD soundtrack certainly
makes this a more enticing package then most.